Siren songs or path to salvation? Interpreting the visions of web technology at 1 a UK regional newspaper in crisis, 2006-11 Abstract A five-year case study of an established regional newspaper in Britain investigates journalists about their perceptions of convergence in digital technologies. This research is the first ethnographic longitudinal case study of a UK regional newspaper. Although conforming to some trends observed in the wider field of scholarship, the analysis adds to skepticism about any linear or directional views of innovation and adoption: the Northern Echo newspaper journalists were observed to have revised their opinions of optimum web practices, and sometimes radically reversed policies. Technology is seen in the period as a fluid, amorphous entity. Central corporate authority appeared to diminish in the period as part of a wider reduction in formalism. Questioning functionalist notions of the market, the study suggests cause and effect models of change are often subverted by contradictory perceptions of particular actions. Meanwhile, during technological evolution the ‘professional imagination’ can be understood as strongly reflecting the parent print culture and its routines, despite a pioneering a new convergence partnership with an independent television company. Keywords: Online news, adoption, internet, multimedia, technology, news culture, convergence Introduction The regional press in the UK is often depicted as being in a state of acute crisis. Its print circulations are falling faster than ever, staff numbers are being reduced, and the market- driven financial structure is undergoing deep instability. The newspapers’ social value is often argued to lie in their democratic potential, and even if this aspiration is seldom fully realized in practice, their loss, transformation or disintegration would be a matter of considerable concern. While digital developments have been regarded as either contributing to crisis or providing a mode of salvation, what is certain is that the internet Siren songs or path to salvation? Interpreting the visions of web technology at 2 a UK regional newspaper in crisis, 2006-11 infrastructure is, firstly, inseparable from the media struggle to stay competitive, and secondly, that its presence has broken the classic geometries of media financing. This study assesses one newspaper’s evolving attitudes and practices towards digital opportunities. Its intention is to identify the discourses of journalists in the newsroom culture in a specific period 2006-2011. The period mirrors the second wave of web technologies (Web 2.0) when internet bandwidth increases spread in the UK population and many new social practices of internet use appeared. The Northern Echo newspaper like much of the UK regional press, belongs to a chain of 17 paid-for titles assembled during a long period of concentration in patterns of ownership in the UK. The title is arguably characteristic of the paid-for UK press, being among those with larger circulation, commercially driven, centred on local communities, overtly neutral, and corporate-owned and run. Practices, organizational principles, and even news sense would correspond to those in many UK regional morning and evening papers. By its morning publication, it belongs to a subset of 19 regional titles that go head-to-head with the national press. Their niche is defined, according to Aldridge, (2007) partly due to ‘an unusual level of self-containment.’ In 1921 the Echo was bought by Westminster Press and, after several evolutions, it is now owned by the media company Gannett Company Inc., the largest newspaper-owning company in the U.S.. Newsquest, a subsidiary of Gannett, controls its UK newspaper interests and Newsquest North-East supervises the Northern Echo and its stablemates, such as the Darlington and Stockton Times. Once described as ‘the great daily of the north- east,’ the paper has had illustrious moments. Its founding editor was the pioneering journalist W.T. Stead and Sir Harold Evans is a more recent luminary. It continues to win awards for quality journalism, especially in the north-east, and its website was in 2011 growing faster than the average in Newsquest titles. Siren songs or path to salvation? Interpreting the visions of web technology at 3 a UK regional newspaper in crisis, 2006-11 Although the regional press employs most of the paid-for journalists in the UK, its online activities are not closely studied despite an expanding literature on UK national newspapers (e.g. Hermida and Thurman, 2008; Singer and Ashman, 2009a). Temple (2008) pointed out that regional papers were slow to develop websites, adding that their video online was ‘uninspired’. In a study of Johnston Press, Singer (2010) found journalists were anxious about user-generated content and protective of their traditional roles. UGC was a valuable extra but needed monitoring if their jobs were not to be undermined. Williams and Franklin, (2007) record ambivalence towards ‘web-first’ policies in the Trinity Mirror group, replicated below, in a context of shrinking workforces and circulation decline. Focusing on social media, Dickinson (2011) examined uses of Twitter in a regional press newsroom, which was seen by journalists as an important tool for building audiences and source relationships. Differing histories and structures of national and regional press in the UK means their understanding or uses of technology should not be assumed as parallel in speed, direction, or given purposes, and so, by implication it may be imprudent to generalize to the regional press any patterns seen in titles such as the Guardian, Telegraph, Daily Mail, or Sun newspapers, to mention a few with impressive online offerings. The editorial culture of the Northern Echo evolved over five years responding to perceived pressures or opportunities from inside the organization at Darlington, or from its parent companies in Britain or the U.S.. Mapping the way the journalists frame the interior and external world in relation to digital change is an overall research purpose which can be conceived as a close-up inspection of the evolution of the journalists’ conceptions of professionalism, markets and technology. These and other frameworks will be first considered in the context of previous scholarship and theories. The double vision of professionalism Siren songs or path to salvation? Interpreting the visions of web technology at 4 a UK regional newspaper in crisis, 2006-11 The ethos of journalistic professionalism is a site of critical discussion and contest, especially in the UK where the notion of craft has closely rivalled that of the professional. This complex term is evolving in discourse of journalists themselves – and critical scrutiny reveals a scene of instability. Professionalism is most usually seen in journalism studies as involving certain ‘traits’ to be present, or absent, in different clusters of workers, but Aldridge and Evetts (2003) point out it is increasingly an instrumental managerial discourse to effect change and social control, rather than a set of values that might sustain journalistic independence. In this context journalists in Britain are losing their previous sense of social marginalisation, preferring the respectability implied by the term professional. For some academics, the perspectives on professionalism reflect tensions between those who primarily perceive transnational commonalities (e.g. Donsbach and Patterson, 2004; Splichal and Sparks, 1994; Deuze, 2005) and many others, who highlight regional and national nuances and differences in journalism cultures (Esser, 2008; Hallin and Mancini, 2004; Hanitzsch, 2007, Preston, 2009). Such divergencies may be accentuated through the choice of terms to define newsroom or news culture. Globalisation is probably working to harmonise aspects of these cultures although Hanitzsch (2007) cites Asian journalism models that display alternative value structures. On the side of those who emphasise stability irrespective of environmental context (e.g. Splichal and Sparks, 1994; Domingo, 2008a; Hermida and Thurman, 2008), professionalism can be portrayed as being internalized and as being persistently reproduced in editorial cultures with its own forms of inertia – sometimes termed inherited symbolic capital (Kunelius and Ruusunoksa, 2009). In Britain’s market driven news ecology, it is most usual for journalists to consider themselves outside professions proper (Aldridge: 2007 :141). Distinctive features of online journalism include its interactive potentials, hypertext, and multimedia (Deuze, 2005; Brannon, 2008; Boczkowski, 2004) Accommodation between professionalism and digital dimensions of journalism has been widely studied, especially Siren songs or path to salvation? Interpreting the visions of web technology at 5 a UK regional newspaper in crisis, 2006-11 focusing on interactivity (e.g Chung, 2007; Massey and Levy, 1999). Opgenhaffen (2011) cautions against taking such markers as ‘interactivity’ or ‘multimedia’ too literally, emphasizing the complexity of making distinctions between individual media online since divergence persists or even increases in ‘meta-media’ portals such as newspapers, alongside apparent convergence. Heeter’s (1989) clarifications of interactivity are useful. Of her six dimensions of interactivity, the three of special interest here are ‘ease of adding information’, (comments on stories, forums) ‘interpersonal communication’ (dialogue online between audience and journalist) and ‘monitoring of